“I’m just caging my monkey mind on paper so I can get on with my fucking day. [Journaling doesn’t] need to solve your problems. [You] simply need to get them out of your head, where they’ll otherwise bounce around all day like a bullet ricocheting inside your skull. Could bitching and moaning on paper for five minutes each morning change your life? As crazy as it might seem, I believe the answer is yes”.

And now that we’ve talked about the purpose behind Mind journals creation, let’s go into how they set themselves up for success.

WHAT MIND JOURNAL IS DOING RIGHT:

1 — They Connected Their Facebook & Instagram Pages to Their Shopify Store.

Many ecommerce business owners don’t think this is a big deal to have.

Something they’ll get to, eventually.

Let me walk you through a customer’s journey of finding your item on Instagram and making a purchase.

The long route OR the shortest route possible — to making a purchase

The long route OR the shortest route possible — to making a purchase

The Long Route (the image to the left) demonstrates the shopping experience for someone who has to do a search on your website for the item they saw on your Instagram profile.

There are, at least, 7 steps the person must go through to make the purchase.

This can lead to frustration that causes the person to abandon making a purchase altogether.

Then there’s The Short Route (the image to the right), where after they click on the image in your Facebook or Instagram page, they’re IMMEDIATELY directed to that item in the store.

No search party to find what they’re looking for.

So what am I trying to say?

REDUCE THE FRICTION.

Make it effortless and as easy as possible for your audience to make a purchase from you.

It can be the difference between you making $100 in sales in a month, and $1000 in sales in a month.

[TWEAK #2]: START A PODCAST

And on that note, I would suggest starting a podcast where Mind Journal interviews:

entrepreneurs

athletes

men in the military or armed services

retired politicians

mental health professionals

blue & white collar professionals

social media celebrities, and more

Asking questions about:

how they overcame depression

how they built up their self awareness

how they may have journaled to get them out of a bad period of their life

how they were able to reach the scopes of success they’ve reached

what their thoughts are on the mental wellness space

daily rituals to keep them in the right state of mind at all times, etc.

If you’re asking yourself, “how do I start a podcast?”, you could do a Google search and you’ll see that you have a plethora of options to choose from.

Choose one of these aficionados and go forth.

But here’s the quick & dirty on how to start right now, with ZERO dollars or for $36.49/month.

Step 1: Have a conversation with someone over Skype, Zoom, or in-person.

Step 2: If it’s over Skype or Zoom, record the conversation using Quicktime.Select ‘New Audio Recording’.

SIDE NOTE: Some people choose ‘New Screen Recording’ — where they’ll record the video conversation. They’ll post the full video on YouTube. And then, strip the video keeping only the audio, and posting that to their podcast.

Step 2a: If it’s in person, record the conversation with your phone. If you’re phone is always low on storage (like mine) use a video camera.Whether it’s a pocket camera or a DSLR, find a quiet location, put it in between you two on the table, press record, and start talking.

Come with an empty memory card, a full battery, and you’re good to go. Image from DPReview

Step 3: Add an intro/outro and edit the interview with whatever editing software you use. I’m personally all about Premiere Pro which is where the $31.49/month comes into play. You can do a search for free online video editing software or apps.

Reach out to your friends via email, text, Instagram, or smoke signals, and see if they know someone you could interview, and if they can give a warm introduction (the BEST option from this list).

The post on social can look something like this:

[TWEAK #3]: DISTRIBUTION. DISTRIBUTION. DISTRIBUTION.

So many people still believe that if they create good content and hit publish, it will immediately grow legs of it’s own and run a marathon across the internet, bringing in thousands of customers screaming…

It happens. But not often.

So what do you do?

You create a distribution plan.

We’re going to post the podcast, perhaps some of the Instagram posts, and any other articles you create to:

Your business’ Facebook Page

Relevant Facebook Groups

You’ll republish your article in the LinkedIn publication

ONLY if you have a group of people on staff, in LinkedIn groups

In relevant Reddit subs

Answer Quora questions with links back to the original content

Republish it on Medium.com

And other online forums you’ve researched, of course, in advance

And this is not to mention getting featured in roundups, or using HARO (Help A Reporter Out), Pinterest, running Facebook & Instagram Ads, and repurposing your content to get as much attention as you possibly can BACK to your content.

You’ll spend 20% of the time writing brilliant content and 80% of your time distributing it.

But you won’t run the gamut on this ONE piece of content for a day, or even a week. But for MONTHS.

This isn’t a sprint, folks.Welcome to the marathon.

QUICK OVERVIEW:

1 — Go deeper, not wider in your Instagram strategy really keeping in mind what will resonate with your audience and bring them value.

2 — Start a podcast. Use the materials you have on hand to start, and upgrade later down the line. Don’t make the excuse and waste time saying you “don’t have the right equipment to pull it off”, because you most likely do.

3 — Distribution. Distribution. Repurpose. Distribution. Repeat.

CONCLUSION:

As always, whether the owner of this website takes my strategy or not, I wish them the BEST of luck and I applaud them on what they’ve accomplished thus far.

If you haven’t had the chance to read their story yet, give it a once over. It’s good.

My theory, if they we’re to take on these tweaks, is that they would slowly see an increase in sales, but more so they’ll be depositing solid building blocks to strengthen their brand for the long haul and nurturing a highly engaged audience.

It’ll be a slow process to build up that clout, but as Ryan Holiday stated in his book ‘The Obstacle is the Way’, “Think progress, not perfection.”

. . . . .

What’s an unexpected distribution platform that you used that brought in clients, traffic, or sales?

Share your knowledge with the community below.

. . . . .

Welcome to my personal #7in30 challenge.

During this challenge I’ll be looking over (1) Instagram account and/or Shopify store every few days for 30 days , to analyze what they’re doing that’s great, and what they could improve on to increase brand awareness and/or their bottomline.

This series is designed to give ecommerce business owners, and anyone who is looking to build their brand, a springboard for your online & social media strategy — no matter what industry you’re in.

This series is suited for the beginner, or a seasoned business that’s finally taking their social media strategy seriously.